Deep Ocean Vast Sea
by Ryleigh04
Summary: She didn't know what was so intriguing about the water or how she found herself there day after day. It called to her; being submerged gave her a sense of clarity for just a moment before her world turned dark again. Andy McNally had a secret, a big secret, a dangerous secret and it could ruin her whole life. *Set post UC, sometime in early season 4 - a little OOC.
1. Chapter 1

**Just a little idea I had - trying to get out all the random thoughts and blubs so maybe I can finally get the inspiration to finish "You Gotta Go There..."

I'll be honest, I'm not really watching the show right now; I've got the episodes all recorded and I turn on a TV to that channel when its on, so it adds another to the viewer list but I'm pretty annoyed with the writing. I realize that there has to be drama etc but I think its total crap with all the time we've spent with 'moments' for other couples (even before now) and even when Sam and Andy were actually a couple we hardly had any moments that made them seem like a couple at all! And, now they are broken up and Sam is dating someone else (blah!) Rant, mostly over - I'll watch the episodes fully eventually but right now!

Anyway, this is only going to be a 2 or 3 shot - definitely AU, but hopefully still enjoyable!

She wasn't sure what was so alluring about the water. Maybe it was the sound of the waves crashing into the shore? Or the tide, consistently rising everyday no matter the weather? It called to her - there was calmness in it that she could not find anywhere else. Andy found herself at the shore nearly everyday. Sometimes she would get there without even realizing how she arrived. That's what happened today. Or, was it yesterday now? It's getting colder by the minute, probably going to snow soon; but even the cold can't make her feel.

They said it would take time but they promised it would get easier. They lied. It doesn't get easier. Every day only makes it harder. Who knew that being away 6 months would destroy an entire life? The love of her life didn't wait for her. Her best friend rebuilt her entire life and seemed to have forgotten to save a spot for her in it. The other rookies had moved on too; Chris was even transferring.

Her partner was having a better time adjusting than she was. Nick said it had a lot to do with his deployments and that starting over was nothing new for him. He knew how to get his life back and understood that it would take time but eventually things would start to feel normal again. Nick had a reason for his faith though; Gail had waited for him. Angry or not, she hadn't moved on; unlike Sam.

Sam left her standing in the rain; he couldn't tell her he loved her until there was a very real possibility that they (because he was there too) were going to die. That grenade could have gone off at any second. Then he makes a freaking joke about how many bones are in the body before finally apologizing and wanting to fix things. It definitely wasn't to late for him to want to fix things, but it was to soon for her. She was so confused and frustrated that when Luke approached her about the project and said she had to decide now; she figured that it would be the best chance to her to get some space and sort things out in her head. She should have found a way to let him know that she was leaving but that she was going to come back and they could talk. She just needed time. Never, in her wildest dreams did she imagine that not only would Sam move on, but he would move one with another COP!

The fact that Marlo is a cop is probably one of the worst parts of Sam moving on. He said he couldn't be a cop and be with Andy; but he apparently has no problem being in a relationship with Marlo and being a cop.

All the Sam things aside; something just wasn't right. Andy knew enough from the few college courses that she had taken and the numerous shrink visits throughout the years following her mom's departure that she was most likely suffering from depression, and maybe even a little PTSD; but what could she do? Admitting it would only create problems in her career and emote sympathy from those she didn't want to know she was suffering. But, it was getting harder to hide. She would miss gaps of time where she would simply be inside her own head or just staring off in to space. She performed her work robotically and since she had been on desk duty more often than not lately, it wasn't an issue. When her shift ended, she avoided everyone and went home and crawled in to bed or went to the water. She was lucky if she remembered to eat every other day. It wasn't healthy and she knew it but it was getting harder and harder to care.

On top of everything else; Andy had a secret. A big one...a dangerous one. She really didn't know how it all started. It was just meant to be one time thing to save her cover. But, it happened a few times again before the end of the op; she was able to hide it from Nick and their handler. Andy would never admit it out loud, but she enjoyed how she felt and when they returned to 15 and she realized that the life she knew was gone, all she wanted was that feeling back. So she went to the other side of town one night. Then back again the following week; and again three more times.

It was stupid. If anyone found out, her life would be even more over than it already was. At best, she would get shipped off to 'heal' and then maybe one day - if she was lucky - she could get her job back. Her secret is another reason to avoid everyone; if she spent too much time in their presence they were bound to notice. They were cops and detectives after all.

Andy squinted as the sun peaked over the horizon. It was officially tomorrow. She had been sitting here staring at the water since she left 15 yesterday at 4:00pm. She shivered, but unzipped her coat further anyway. She rested her head on her knees, closed her eyes and let the sound of the waves crashing on the shore lull her to sleep.

Despite the clouds, the sun behind them made the sky bright, and roused Andy not long after she fell asleep. She stood and despite the cold took of her coat and shoes. She walked closer to where the water was creeping higher up the beach. It washed over her toes and she sucked in a breath. The cold outside was nothing compared to the temperature of the water. Her cell phone rang in her pocket; glancing at the screen she saw it was Oliver. She debated ignoring it, but knew her friend was worried about her.

"Hello." She said quietly

"McNally! Where are you?" Oliver asked sounding concerned, not forgetting that the last time she failed to show up to Parade was because she had been drugged and Gail kidnapped.

"Just taking a walk. Why?"

"Because you missed Parade and you are supposed to be my partner and buy my lunch today." It wasn't lost on him how out of it she sounded and he wonders if what he and Collins suspect is true.

"Oh, well I'll just see you later then." Andy said as a fog horn went off in the distance from a ship coming in to the pier, she clicked the phone off and tossed it back to where her coat was, ignoring Oliver's shouts of "McNally."

She wasn't sure what was so intriguing about the water; it was freezing but she kept putting one foot in front of the other moving deeper. The water felt like a million pin pricks hitting her skin, she was shivering so violently her teeth were chattering, but she kept walking. Eventually, a numbness started to set in and by the time the water reached her neck the numbness expanded. She bent her knees to submerge herself completely. She gasped when she came up for air as the cold air from above hit her wet head. She repeated the action several times, drifting farther along, and staying underwater for longer periods each time. She was hoping for a clarity that just wasn't coming. Her ability to stay under water was getting less due to the cold that was constricting her breathing. She looked out to where the bay opened up and with a tired sigh she realized that whatever she was searching or hoping for she wasn't going to find staring out at the vastness of the water.

Andy turned and began the slow walk to shore. Her head started to pound and she could feel herself moving slower as the weakness started to set in. The shaking started again and by the time she reached the shore her vision had started to blur. Andy fell to her knees on the bank and crawled out of the water towards a pile of rocks. Her coat and cell phone were nowhere in sight, she must have drifted farther than she thought. Too tired to look, she collapsed to her stomach and succumbed to the overwhelming desire to cave in to the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

WOW! What a response; thank you so much! I'm know their character's are out there and different from the show but what's the fun if you can't play with them a little bit!

Oliver pressed send on his cell phone again, "Come on McNally, pick up." He hung up on a curse when her voicemail picked up again. Spotting Nick, he called out, "Collins, I need to talk to you."

Nick jogged over, "What's up?"

Oliver nodded his head to an interview room, "In here." He closed the door behind him. "I just talked to Andy."

"Where is she?" Nick asked

"I'm not sure, but I don't have a good feeling about it." Oliver shook his head; "She said she was taking a walk and that she would see me later. Her voice was real quiet, like she was tired and then she just hung up and won't answer now."

"And you think something is wrong?" Nick questioned

"I think that what you said the other day is making more and more sense and I have a really bad feeling." Oliver answered

"I've been worried about her since we came back. She's not adjusting very well and honestly even before we came back she was acting a little strange but wouldn't talk to me about it." Nick was almost afraid to say what he was really thinking but Oliver beat him to it.

"Do you really think it could be drugs?"

Nick shrugged, "It feels like more than depression or PTSD; but drugs are so far out of the scope of what Andy McNally would do with everything that she's been through with her dad. But, I don't know what else it could be."

"I'm going to see if Frank will let you come with me and we're going to track her down. The last time I had this feeling was when my daughter ran away and this scum bag beat her up." Oliver walked to their boss's office.

It didn't take much effort from Oliver to convince Frank to let him and Nick look for McNally. Truth be told, he had been worried about her since before she went under and if he had been asked his opinion on letting her go for a 6 month UC, he would have said 'hell no'.

Nick had just run to his locker to get McNally's spare key when Sam cornered Oliver.

"What's going on?" He asked

Oliver looked at his friend and seeing the fear in his eyes took pity on him, "McNally didn't show up for Parade this morning and I talked to her and she just sounded a little weird, so we're just going to check on her."

"What do you mean weird? Is she hurt?" Sam questioned

"I'm not sure brother." Oliver shrugged, "I'll be honest with you because I know you love her still even if you are trying to make this thing with Marlo work. But, we're real worried that she is going down a similar road to her dad's and we just want to stop her before she goes to far." He spotted Nick coming out of the locker room, "I've got to go."

"Wait!" Sam shot his arm out to stop him, "What can I do to help?"

"Nothing right now Sammy, but I'll let you know."

Nick and Oliver drove to Andy's condo first. Oliver pounded on the door for a few seconds before stepping back to let Nick use her key. They weren't really expecting to find her there but they definitely were not expecting the mess that greeted them. Bottles were everywhere: beer, wine, liquor and pills. Clothes were strewn about, her bed wasn't made. The only place that didn't seem that messy was her kitchen.

"Where else do you think she could be?" Oliver asked

"I don't know, did you hear anything in the background while she was on the phone with you?" Nick asked while they walked back out to the patrol car.

"It was really quiet honestly. I thought I heard a horn as she hung up but I was shouting her name so it's hard to be sure." Oliver took a sip of his water, "I know we don't have any actual reason to think she might be in danger; but maybe we can try and get a location from her cell phone."

"Should we call Frank or did you want to call Swarek?" Nick asked, at Oliver's question look he continued, "I saw you talking to him. I know he still loves her and I hate him because he is the main reason that she's like this but I know that he isn't deliberately trying to cause her pain. If he can help, then I'm all for calling him."

Oliver nodded as he hit speed dial 3 on his cell phone. Sam answered on the first ring, "Did you find her?"

"Not yet. We're still looking; do you think you can put a trace on her cell and see if you can get a GPS signal?" Oliver asked

Sam coughed, "I'm not at 15 right now, so I'll call Nash and ask her to do it."

"Where are you?"

"I'm looking for her too." Sam said simply, "I'll call you back when Nash has a location."

Traci was able to locate Andy's phone pretty quickly, "It's not going to be 100% dead on her location. Her battery must be very low because the signal keeps fading; but hopefully this is close enough."

Sam called Oliver back, "Meet me at the marina. Traci said her phone is showing as being somewhere near there. Her dad used to go to a beach in that area a lot, she said it calmed him and helped him think."

Less than 10 minutes later Sam, Oliver and Nick arrived at the marina. Three pairs of trained eyes scanned the area and they moved closer to the water, spreading out as they walked. "McNally!" and "Andy!" were shouted at different intervals. Nick dialed her cell number again, hoping that her phone wasn't completely dead or on vibrate. "You guys hear anything?" He shouted over to Oliver and Sam.

"No." Oliver responded looking over to see Sam, with his hands on his hips walking down to the edge of the shore.

Sam ran a hand through his hair and walked to where the water met the sand, his eyes scanning the water. Nick and Oliver walked to meet him and Sam turned to face them, "Traci said her phone is showing that's its here somewhere. I don't see her or it. And, it's freezing out now, forecast said it's supposed to snow tomorrow. " Sam looked back at the water, scanning again desperately trying not to thing of what he was fearing, he took a deep breath but didn't turn back to look them. "One of my CI's called me about six weeks ago, thought he recognized McNally on the other side of town buying from a dealer. He called me to see if there was a bust scheduled that night. I usually give him a heads up when stuff is going down. I told him I didn't think so and asked where she was. I figured he had to be wrong, I mean he only met her one time when I had to bring her with me once to meet him."

"He wasn't wrong, was he?" Nick asked

"No, I was in the area already for something else, so it took me two minutes to get over to where he said. I saw her take something from this scumbag, right there on the street corner. She walked to the bus stop and I followed it to make sure she went back home." Sam looked at them then, "I've followed her whenever I can and had my CI let me know the second she's come back to that area. I've seen her go back twice but..." He trailed off.

"But, its Andy and you don't want to believe that what you saw could actually mean that she is doing drugs." Oliver finished

Nick sighed, "She started acting weird the last couple months before we came back. I just chalked it up to her being afraid of what she might find when she came back. But I've been worried that it was something like this and I wasn't sure how to talk to her about it with everything she had been through with her dad."

"Just focus on finding her first." Oliver said, "I know we are all worried she's in the water, but we aren't going to think like that yet. We are going to keep searching this area; she said she was walking when I got her on the phone earlier. I'll call Frank and see if he can send anyone else out here to help us. We know how to do this. Lets keep canvassing the area until we are sure she's not here and then we'll worry about what to do next."

They spread out the way they were trained and began the slow walk across the hundreds of yards of beach and rocks. Frank requested that whatever unit was in the area and available to meet them at the beach. Unfortunately, Marlo and Gail were the closest. Marlo pursed her lips as she stared at Sam; the expression on his face was one of fear, almost bordering on panic. Despite what he said to the contrary, Marlo knew that his feelings for Andy McNally were nowhere near gone, they may have even increased. She knew that he had been following her lately, but when she asked him about it, he snapped at her and she hadn't brought it up since.

Reluctantly, she followed Gail to where Oliver had pointed to search. Nick was on his phone again attempting to reach Andy. "Does anyone hear anything? Ringing or vibrating? "

At the negative response, they continued walking and looking for any signs of Andy or her phone, while Nick continued to press send over and over again praying for a sound to come through.

"Hey wait!" Oliver shouted, silencing everyone.

Nick heard the ringing off in the distance, closer to where Oliver was standing. Nick ran towards the sound. "Its here with her jacket." Oliver shouted to Nick and Sam who had also taken off running in that direction. "I don't see her though."

Gail and Marlo both followed somewhat slowly. Gail knew that nothing had happened between Andy and Nick during their undercover, but their closeness and friendship bothered her nonetheless. She would also though be lying if she didn't say that even she thought Andy had been acting strange. The girls joined the group of worried men.

"Alright, this is our new starting point," Oliver reasoned, "Lets keep moving from here and..." He trailed off as Sam let out a gasp of "Shit," and took off running.

Sam had wandered ahead of the group while they were standing with her jacket; his trained eyes frantically searching the top of the water for even a glimpse of her; while he scanned his eyes landed on a rocky spot about 30 yards away. He had passed over that spot on his initial scan but now looking again something doesn't seem right. He squints and moves closer. Is that a hand? His eyes trail up from the hand to the arm connected to it. Traveling higher he sees brown hair, pale skin, she is lying face down. Sam gasped in horror, "Shit." He took off running.

"Andy!" It felt like forever for him to reach her, but climbing over the rocks, he finally reached her side. Her legs were still partially in the water; she was soaking wet and unconscious. Her lips and skin were blue and she was freezing to the touch. He ripped off his jacket wrapped her in it and pulled her in to his arms. Nick and Oliver had reached his side; Oliver felt her neck, "She still has a pulse.

Nick could be heard shouting for an ambulance in his radio, "Closest rig is 3 minutes out." He told Oliver, taking off his own jacket to put over Andy. He stared at Sam, holding his best friend in his arms. He could see the fear in Sam's eyes that he was sure were mirrored in her own.

Sam flashed back to a time, more than a year ago at the concert at the dome when she was shot and the seconds from when he heard the shots, to seeing her lying on the ground until he was finally able to reach her side and he knew her vest had saved her life. Before this moment, those seconds dragged on and seemed to take forever. But now, the few short minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive were the longest in his life.

He held her in his arms, wrapped in his jacket, trying to get the blue tone off her skin. Oliver had helped him pull her completely out of the water and kept fingers on her wrist to reassure both of them that she still had a pulse. "It's weak, Sam."

"I can't lose her." He whispered back.

Oliver looked over his shoulder to where Gail was standing with Marlo. He caught Marlo's eye briefly before she looked away from the scene in front of her. "Peck, grab the emergency kit from your cruiser."

He turned to Nick, "We need to be ready. A lot can happen in 3 minutes." He whispered his statements but Sam was so engrossed with holding Andy in his arms and trying to warm her up he wasn't pay any attention to the rest of them.

Sam's mind was racing. _How is this happening? Why didn't I talk to her sooner; the very first time I saw her downtown. I can't lose her, I won't lose her! She may not be mine right now officially, but somehow I'm going to find a way to make her understand how much I love her. God, where are the paramedics? She is still blue and freezing - she has to be OK. _

When the paramedics arrived Oliver had to literally drag Sam away from Andy, so the paramedics could get to her. "Any idea how long she's been unconscious?" One of them asked.

"I talked to her on the phone almost an hour ago; but I don't know how long after that she passed out." Oliver answered.

They worked quickly to get her on the stretcher, "We need to get her to the hospital, and the hypothermia could stop her heart any minute."

"We've got to go, her BP is dropping." The paramedics loaded the stretcher into the ambulance and quickly worked to cut off her wet clothes and wrap her in warming blankets.

"Give me the keys." Oliver said to Sam. At his look of protest, Oliver cut him off, "You are in no condition to drive. Collins will take our cruiser and meet us there."

Sam nodded and the three men ran to their respective cars with Oliver shouting to Gail and Marlo, "Get back on patrol, we'll let Frank know what's going on."


End file.
